


love your flaws and live for your mistakes

by milominderbinder



Series: maia's shameless fic a day in the month of may [10]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: AU, F/F, diner au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 10:20:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1601369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milominderbinder/pseuds/milominderbinder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a high school drop out working nights at the Waffle Cottage and spending her free time talking Ian and Mickey through emotional crises, Mandy doesn't expect very much out of her life these days.</p><p>But when the girls who work the Rub and Tug down the street start coming into the diner after their shifts, Mandy's eye is caught by one in particular. One with sad eyes and a wicked grin and a belly that seems to swell more under her coat each day.</p><p>Her name is Svetlana. And she's about to change Mandy's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love your flaws and live for your mistakes

“I called order up five minutes ago! Where the _fuck_ is Mandy?”

Mandy swears under her breath as she slips back through the kitchen door.  The diner had been nearly deserted when she’d slipped out to take a somewhat _unofficial_ break, because her craving for a cigarette was getting unbearable, and she’d figured that she could get away with it.  So of course the first thing she hears when she gets back inside is the pissed-off yelling of her asshole manager.

“I’m here,” she says, hurrying through the kitchen and grabbing the plates which had caused all the fuss in the first place.  One set of waffles, one bacon and eggs combo.

“Where’ve you been?” Doug, the cook, asks as she passes him.  He abandons his place at the grill to come and stand too close in front of her, folding his arms and glaring expectantly.

“Bathroom,” she lies, hoping the smell of smoke lingering on her clothes doesn’t give her away.  “Uh, girl troubles.  What table’s this going to?”

Doug looks slightly mollified at that, or at least uncomfortable enough to drop the subject.  Mandy’s always had a knack for telling men the things they least want to hear, and has learnt to use that to her advantage; she almost smiles for a second, feeling slightly proud of herself.

“Seventeen,” he says, pointing out of the kitchen and in the direction of the table, and then snaps, “quit slacking.”

He stalks to the back of the kitchen, and Mandy rolls her eyes before she heads back out into the diner.  Table seventeen is two middle-aged guys who are fat and tattooed and remind her a little too much of her dad to be comfortable, so she slides their food onto their table quickly and retreats, ignoring the wolf whistle one of them sends her way.  She’s just about to head back behind the counter when she hears the bell above the door tinkle.

She sighs.  It’s nearing midnight, so the diner isn’t exactly _busy,_ but somehow the slew of customers still seems never ending.  Mandy doesn’t think she was actually cut out for a career in customer service.

She grabs the coffee pot off the counter and heads over to the table by the window, which the newest customer is sitting down at.  It’s a woman, bundled up in a huge faux-fur coat, but Mandy doesn’t even notice anything else about her, so intent on getting her job _over_ with.

“Coffee?” she asks, in her best attempt at a cheery voice, already reaching for the upturned mug on the table.  She’s almost about to start pouring it when she notices the woman shaking her head.

“No,” she says.  “No coffee.  It is late at night, who drinks coffee now?  Fucking Americans.”

The girl has a heavy accent which Mandy thinks she recognises as Russian, but her voice is still somehow soft and light.  Mandy finally gets a good look at her, and has to blink a couple of times in quick succession just to kickstart her brain again.  They don’t often get girls quite this _beautiful_ in their shitty diner.

“Oh,” she says, slightly surprised, lowering the coffee pot.  “Well, we have decaf as well, or hot tea, orange juice, bottled water, and a range of diet sodas.”

Rattling off the menu is like second nature to her these days, which she’s thankful for; she can slip into autopilot, because her brain is suddenly feeling a little fried.  She’s not quite sure why.  This girl just has eyes which are _so fucking blue,_ and look haunted in a way Mandy recognises from her own mirror _._

“I take tea,” the girl says.  “Black.  And scrambled eggs to eat.”

Mandy had just been about to hand her a menu, but pulls it back and fumbles for her pad instead.  It’s not exactly a hard order to remember, but Doug throws a hissy fit if she doesn’t write this stuff down.

“Okay,” says Mandy, offering a smile, trying to shake off the weird feeling she’s gotten from looking into this girl’s eyes.  “I’ll be back with your tea in a minute.”

Mandy turns away, walks towards the counter, but for some reason a moment later she feels the need to glance back over her shoulder.

The girl isn’t smiling, but she is watching Mandy leave.

Mandy suddenly feels all fingers and thumbs, as she shouts the order back to Doug and then fumbles about making the hot tea.  She almost scalds herself twice, and it takes twice as long as usual - by the time she’s done, Doug’s calling _“order up!”_ from the kitchen, and Mandy carries the tea and the eggs over at the same time.

“Here ya’ go,” she says, as she slides them onto the girl’s table.  Usually that’s her cue to leave, but she for some reason finds herself lingering, fiddling with her order pad and shifting her weight from foot to foot.  “Can I get you anything else?”

“No,” says the girl.  “Thank you.”

Mandy nods, awkwardly.  The girl is staring right at her, and for some ridiculous reason, Mandy feels her cheeks starting to heat up.  To hide the blush she hurries away, heads behind the counter to start marrying the ketchup bottles, trying not to look over to the booth by the window.

She fails in that task miserably.  Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the girl raising the tea to her lips, taking a sip even though it must still be boiling hot.  Then she finally shrugs off her big furry coat.  Underneath she’s wearing a skintight sequined top, which scoops low on her chest and leaves little to the imagination.  Everyone knows about the rub and tug down the street - half the guys who come into the diner have worked up an appetite there beforehand.  Mandy has a feeling she knows where this girl with the sad eyes and Russian accent and trashy clothes has come in from.

She forces herself to serve the other customers who come in, and to clean out the coffee filter and wipe down the counters and organise the cutlery.  Forty five minutes after coming in, the girl pays with a stack of crumpled up dollar bills, counts them out slowly.  She leaves Mandy a too-large tip, and smiles at her on her way out.

Mandy listens to the bell on the door tinkle as it shuts behind her, and feels like she’s just spent a little too long staring into the sun.

\--

The next night, the girl comes back.

This time, Mandy’s not on a break, is right behind the counter, and she sees the girl come in.  She’s wearing her big coat again, but her legs are bare where they poke out from it, feet squeezed into a pair of silver killer heels that Mandy winces just looking at.  She’s not alone this time, either, is flanked by two more girls, one blonde and one fiercely redheaded, both dressed in similarly provocative outfits and babbling away rapidly in a language Mandy doesn’t understand.

The girl from last night isn’t speaking, though, and as soon as she enters, her eyes find Mandy.  Mandy fumbles with the mug she’d been wiping, catches it only a second before it hits the counter.  She looks down and away from the girl, catches her breath for a second, before she goes over to their table.

She reads out the specials, and takes the orders.  The girl asks for black tea again, with waffles this time; Mandy hardly even hears what her two companions ask for, scribbles it down in her pad on autopilot.  She doesn’t understand what’s wrong with her, only that it’s making her heart speed up and she’s not sure if she likes it.

The group of girls stay in the diner for nearly an hour, eating and babbling babbling away in what Mandy thinks is Russian.  She tries to do her job and not keep walking past their table, but it’s hard when it feels like she’s been fucking _magnetised_ or something.  Every time she turns away, she thinks she feels eyes on her.  It makes it hard to concentrate.  

Almost all of the conversation goes straight over Mandy’s head, but one thing she does manage to pick out is a name.

_Svetlana._

Svetlana leaves a big tip again, and smiles at Mandy on her way out the door.  Mandy feels her hands shaking, just a little, as she clears away Svetlana’s table.

She just doesn’t have a clue _why._

\--

Svetlana comes in every night for a week.

Every night, she orders something different off the menu.  Pancakes, bacon, toast, sausage, french toast, omelette.  Three times she brings friends with her, and four times she comes alone.  Once she wears sneakers, and every other day she wears her silver heels.  Her nail polish changes from red to gold halfway through the week.

Mandy doesn’t know why she notices these things.  She doesn’t know why her face heats up just a little every time Svetlana’s hand brushes hers as she passes over a mug of tea.  She doesn’t know why Svetlana has started to smile at her more, her expression softening as soon as she sees Mandy approaching to take her order.  She doesn’t know how she manages to get drawn into a couple of actual _conversations_ with Svetlana either - short ones, sure, but still far more than Mandy has ever said to any other customer before.

She thinks maybe her life is just so pathetic that she needs _something_ to look forward to.

\--

Svetlana comes in every day except Sundays, for three more weeks.

Mandy learns that she likes to spike her tea with Whiskey and has a wicked, wicked grin, which takes Mandy’s breath away every time.

\--

One morning, long before she goes to work, Mandy wakes up horny.

She's not had much luck in the guy department since kicking out Kenyatta, but she has no problems getting herself off, almost actually prefers it.  She slips her hand between her legs and rocks into it, tries to conjure up images of dicks and hard bodies to bring herself to a swift climax so she can get on with her day sans the pulsing between her legs.

Instead, she somehow finds herself thinking about Svetlana's light eyes, plump lips, the swell of her cleavage.  She comes suddenly, gasping and writhing, biting down on her hand to keep from moaning aloud.  Her orgasm seems to go on forever.

Afterwards she lies there, stunned and confused and not entirely unhappy.  Well.   _That_ was unexpected.

\--

When Ian won’t get out of bed and Mickey looks like every breath he takes pushes him one step further to unravelling completely, Mandy takes a week off work.

She never thought she’d miss her shitty job, but somehow the world seems a whole lot darker all of a sudden, and she doesn’t have Svetlana’s smiles to help light it back up anymore.  Still.  Some things are more important.

\--

A week later, still not much is sorted out, but Mandy has to go back to work or she’ll get fired.  At least they know for sure what’s wrong with Ian, now, and Mandy and Mickey have sat up for two nights in a row researching it, trying to figure out what to do.  Ian is still barely responsive, just about able to get out of bed to shower and eat and sometimes sit on the couch and watch TV with a little coaxing, but he’s not _Ian,_ not the Ian they both know and love, if in very different ways.

Still, Mickey’s made him a doctor’s appointment, and there’s not much else Mandy can do, from home.  She goes back to work so she can keep her job, trusts Mickey to take care of whatever Ian needs in the day.

She doesn’t admit it, but she’s not really that upset about going back.  She knows it’s ridiculous, but - well.  Every night, at about midnight, she’s found herself craving a cup of tea.  And she doesn’t even drink the stuff.

Her first night back, the hours seem to stretch on forever.  Her shift starts at eight, and by eleven, she’s pretty sure she’d aged twenty years.  By midnight, she’s wondering if she can put in for retirement.

At twenty-three past twelve, Svetlana walks through the door.

Mandy can’t help it; she breaks into a smile as soon as she sees her.  Svetlana’s wearing a different coat to usual, not her big fur one but a cropped black parka, and Mandy can see the skintight red mini skirt she’s wearing underneath.  She’s wearing her sneakers today, too, not her heels, and her hair is piled messily on top of her head.

Before she even sits down at a table, she looks around and spots Mandy.

Mandy wonders if she’s making it up or not, but she could _swear_ Svetlana starts smiling when she sees her.

Mandy tries to act casual about it, but as soon as Svetlana’s sat down, she hurries over to her table.  Then she just stands there, doesn’t quite know what to say, clutching her order pad so hard her knuckles turn white.  She’d almost forgotten how crazy stunning Svetlana is to look at, and is finding it takes her breath away again.

“Long time and no see,” Svetlana says, shrugging off her coat and smiling up at Mandy.

“Yeah, I had to take a week off,” Mandy says, and then elaborates even though she thinks Svetlana probably doesn’t care at all.  “My brother’s boyfriend is, like, really sick, and he also happens to be my best friend, so.  I wanted to help out.”

“That is kind of you,” Svetlana says.  Mandy shrugs - she doesn’t think she was actually that useful to anyone at home, but it felt better to at least _pretend_ that just being around was doing some good.

“Not really,” she says.  “I’m the one who got a week off and they’re the ones going through shit.”

She curls her lip as she says it, rubs her finger against the edge of her order pad, but other than that doesn’t do much.  

“Well, I am glad you’re back.  I like you better than other waitress,” Svetlana says, smiling bright, and Mandy feels herself blush before she can help it.  “She never smiles, never tells me how her day is being.”

“Guess I’m just chatty,” Mandy says, trying to hide the fact that her stomach is doing cartwheels.

“She is not as cute as you, either,” Svetlana says.  She says it conversationally, like that’s the kind of thing people _say_ to their - to their what, to their waitresses?  To their _friends?_ Mandy wonders, for a second, if she and Svetlana are friends.  It seems a strange thing to call it, given the incredibly specific circumstances in which they hang out, but the sad truth is that Mandy doesn’t really _have_ any proper friends, at least not outside of the Gallagher family, and she’s probably better off if she just takes whatever she can get.

“Uh, yeah,” she says, trying to ignore the blush burning her cheeks.  “My brother and his boyfriend aren’t as cute as you, either.”

As soon as she says it she wishes she could snatch the words back out of the air, shove them back down her own throat, because what the _fuck._ But Svetlana doesn’t seem to mind, just grins, and then orders french toast and her usual black tea, and Mandy goes to get it for her.

They chat a little longer when Mandy brings Svetlana’s food over, but Mandy eventually has to get back to work, serve the other customers filtering through, clean the place up, appease Doug by at least pretending to do her work.  And before she knows it, Svetlana’s leaving again, with a smile and a too-big tip.

\--

Two days later, Svetlana comes in and eats as usual, and then as she’s leaving, she calls over her shoulder, “Goodbye, Mandy.”

She says it like it’s no big deal, but Mandy almost falls over.

Svetlana’s never said her name before.

She decides immediately that she likes it.

\--

The next week, Svetlana seems preoccupied.

She’s ordered waffles and black tea, like usual.  When Mandy brings over the tea, just like she has most nights for a while now, she pulls a small flask out of the pocket of her uniform.

“Whiskey?” she asks, grinning.  She kind of says it as a rhetorical question, because Svetlana loves whiskey in her tea, and has never turned it down before, but when she goes to tip some into Svetlana’s cup she finds her hand being pushed away.  She frowns.  “You sober now or something?  What’s up?”

A beat of silence.  Then -

“I may have baby,” Svetlana admits, quietly.

There’s nobody else in the diner.  Doug’s in the bathroom, either jacking off or taking the longest shit of his life.

Mandy sneaks outside and sits on the curb behind the diner and spends an hour talking to Svetlana, listening to her cry about this douchebag from the rub and tug who fucked her without a condom, about the baby she lost a year ago and the one she lost when she was fifteen, about how she can’t go through that again but she can’t have a baby either because she can’t support it, doesn’t know what to do.  And Mandy thinks about her dad, and about the baby she never wanted, never loved, and the abortion that somehow still left her feeling a little too hollow inside even though it was the only option she’d had.

She never talks about it.  Mostly she pretends like it didn’t happen.  Occasionally there are times when she can’t stop the memories from coming, though.  The first time she said _no_ to Kenyatta and he held her down anyway; the time she said _yes_ to Lip and he came in her bare, and said it wouldn’t be all that bad if she got knocked up, like he didn’t even _remember_ that she’d already been through that.  Sometimes she thinks because she can’t help it.  But still.  She never _talks_ about it.

But right then, she does.  Because she thinks that maybe it’ll help Svetlana - to know she’s not alone, that Mandy understands how many shitty things can happen to one person in a lifetime, how the list never seems to end.  The words stick in her throat the whole time she’s explaining it, and afterwards, Svetlana rests her arms on Mandy’s knees where they’re folded into her chest.  It’s almost a hug but not really.

Mandy doesn’t even care when she goes back into the diner and gets reamed by Doug for taking off.  

Some things are more important.

\--

They don’t exactly have another heart to heart about the baby, but Svetlana keeps coming into the diner, every single night, so Mandy figures she hasn’t nipped the thing in the bud - she just wouldn’t have had time.

After a couple of months, Mandy notices that Svetlana’s stomach is starting to bulge.  One day it suddenly seems to _pop,_ and before she knows it, it’s completely obvious that Svetlana’s pregnant.

Her face gets a little rounder and she stops wearing her trashy clothes so much, favouring baggy sweaters and her sneakers and the single pair of skinny jeans she owns that still fit so long as she doesn’t do up the button.

Every time she walks through the door, Mandy has to bite her lip to stop from blurting out how _fucking_ beautiful she is.

\--

By her seventh month of pregnancy, Svetlana is walking with a slight waddle.  She’ll lean her whole weight against the glass doors of the diner to push inside, and Mandy will watch her, grinning.  Mandy always starts making a pot of tea at eleven fifty nine.  Svetlana always comes in just past midnight.

\--

One night, Svetlana comes in later than usual, and stays there long past when she’s finished her food, right up until Mandy’s shift ends

Then she walks Mandy home.  Their shoulders bump together in the dark, and they talk quietly about nothing much the whole walk, and when they reach Mandy’s door, Svetlana brushes her lips against Mandy’s cheek, gently and with no intent.

Mandy goes weak at the fucking knees.  She wants to invite Svetlana inside, but by the time she’s recovered enough to speak, Svetlana is already walking away.

\--

A month later, Svetlana comes in at midnight, but doesn’t head to a booth like usual.

Instead, she walks right up to the counter, which Mandy is stood behind, and takes a seat on one of the stools.  Mandy bites her tongue about how that might not be the best idea - Svetlana’s centre of gravity is kind of off these days, what with the vast baby bump, but she seems to be balanced well enough on the seat.  Just like she seems to do most impossible things pretty well.

“Hey,” says Mandy, sliding the cup of hot tea straight over the counter to Svetlana, then leaning down on her elbows and grinning at her.  Svetlana places her fingers over the brim of the mug lightly, not looking Mandy straight in the eyes.

“Hello,” she says.  Her voice is just a little stiffer than usual, and Mandy frowns, wondering what’s wrong.  She wants to ask, but Doug’s hovering in the kitchen just behind her, and she doesn’t want him to give her another lecture on not doing her job to the _extremely_ high standards of their shitty diner.

“Uh, we have a special today on the waffle breakfast, so that comes with a plate of waffles with syrup of your choice and a side of fruit, and you can also get bacon or -”

“Someone has asked me to marry him.”

Mandy stops talking.

“A man who sometimes comes into tug shop.  He is nice.  Sometimes he pays and does not even make me touch him, just wants to talk.  Not cruel.  He said he would marry me, take care of baby like it was his own.  He does not have much, but has more than me.  He would provide for me and baby.”

Mandy’s underwater.

It’s crazy.  She’s never quite felt like this.  Her head is just - everything sounds muffled, and her ears are buzzing, and her eyes are blurry.  It takes her a moment to realise that’s because they’re filling up with tears.

“Oh,” she says.  In the back of her mind she hears the tinkle of the bell above the door, signalling that the only other customer in the place is leaving, but it doesn’t matter.  All she can see is Svetlana; her wide open face framed by her soft dark hair, her threadbare jumper stretched tight over her baby bump, her silver-painted nails on the rim of her mug, her eyes, wide and pale and sad, staring _straight_ at Mandy.  “Well, congrats.  He sounds - he sounds real nice.  Better than any of my piece of shit boyfriends.”

“I told him I had to think.”

Mandy swallows hard, looks down at the counter, busies herself with scrubbing away an invisible stain with a rag.

“Why?” she asks, when it feels like she can talk again.  “Seems like a sweet deal to me.”

“Maybe,” Svetlana responds, shrugging.  She takes a sip of her tea, though Mandy knows it must still be boiling hot.  “But I have problem.  He is not who I want to be with.”

\--

They have sex in the bathroom of the diner, Svetlana half sat on the counter, Mandy pressed up against her as close as the baby bump will allow.  It’s the first time Mandy’s slept with a girl.  It’s not the first time Svetlana has.

The bathroom is grimy and dark and it smells and they have to be quiet, panting into each other’s lips as they fumble with Svetlana’s jeans and Mandy’s polyester tights.  It’s probably the least romantic setting in the history of the world.

Somehow, it still feels more like making love than anything else Mandy’s ever done.

\--

Svetlana leaves late that night, pressing a quick hard kiss to Mandy’s lips after furtively checking they’re hidden from view in the corner booth.  She says, “See you tomorrow,” and Mandy smiles so hard she thinks she might _burst._

When she goes home that night, Ian’s up.  He’s been depressive for nearly a week, curled up in bed immobile and silent, and now he’s sat on the sofa in dirty sweats, eating soup while Mickey perches too close next to him and watches like a hawk.  Mandy thinks this day might be blessed.  She wants to tell them everything, about Svetlana, every single thing from the year they’ve known each other, thinks they might be the ones who would come closest to understanding.  But in the end, she doesn’t.  It’s enough just to sit with the two of them, watch them be happy, knowing that for once, she’s happy _too_.

\--

The next night, Mandy makes the pot of tea at eleven fifty nine pm like always, her entire body humming with excitement.

At the end of her shift, the tea is cold, and Mandy tries not to cry on her way home

\--

A week passes, and no Svetlana.

Mandy feels a little closer to breaking every day.

\--

On the seventh day, Mandy breaks, and talks to Ian.

He’s up and about and back on his meds now, though still a little shaky from the week before.  He’s her best friend, though, even when he’s not totally himself.  And she _needs_ to talk to her best friend.

She cries on his shoulder for an hour, something she’s never done before.  Not when he found out about Terry raping her, not when he took her to the abortion clinic, not when she broke up with Lip, not when Kenyatta hit her or when she kicked him out.  Somehow, losing Svetlana is worse than all that, worse than all the _worst_ things.  It’s the thing that breaks her.  She sits on the couch with him, crying into his shirt, and he rubs her back and strokes her hair and tells her that things will all be okay.

There was a time when Mandy believed every single thing Ian Gallagher told her.  
  
That time has passed.  She knows that nothing’s gonna be okay again.

\--

In her head, Mandy makes lists of things she’d done wrong.

Maybe the sex was bad.  To her it had felt mind blowing, the best she’d ever had by oceans, but she was pathetically new at it and Svetlana had been with girls before - maybe to her it wasn’t worth it.  Maybe Mandy had touched the wrong place, licked the wrong way, and Svetlana had cringed, gone to laugh with her friends about the awkward pseudo-straight waitress she’d picked up.

Or maybe it had been something else.  Something Mandy had said, something she _hadn’t_ said.  Maybe Svetlana had decided to marry the guy from the rub and tug after all; maybe Mandy hadn’t made it clear enough that she was _in,_ that it wasn’t a hook up, that she wanted to _be_ there, for Svetlana and for the baby.  Maybe Svetlana had needed more security.

Maybe Mandy had been too clingy, or not clingy enough, had come across unavailable just because of how breathless Svetlana always made her.  Maybe she’d seemed stupid - she was only a high school dropout working nights at a diner, after all, she would hardly call herself a _catch._

Maybe she’d parted her hair the wrong way, painted her nails the wrong colour, laughed too loud, blinked too much, maybe the stars were aligned the wrong fucking way.

Whatever it was, she thinks it’s the worst thing she’s ever done.

\--

Eight days later is when Mandy loses hope, and doesn’t make the tea at eleven fifty nine.

\--

Eight days later is when Svetlana comes back.

\--

Mandy drops a plate when she sees her walk into the diner.  It smashes around her feet, the pieces painting jagged cuts across the lino, but she doesn’t even hear it, doesn’t see it, doesn’t care.

\--

Svetlana has her hair pulled back, and she’s wearing her heels again, and a baggy t-shirt and a short skirt, and in her arms, there’s a bundle of blankets.

\--

Not a bundle of blankets.  It’s moving, making sounds.  Svetlana’s stomach is flat.

A baby boy.

\--

“Mandy,” is the first thing Svetlana says, her voice imploring, eyes soft.

Mandy swallows, hard.  She can slightly hear Doug yelling at her in the background, for dropping the plate, for ignoring him now, but not quite.  It’s like everything’s muffled, blurred, quiet, except Svetlana who is shining and clear.

“Svetlana,” Mandy says.  Her voice sounds far away, even to her.  “I - I thought you’d fucked off.  Thought I wasn’t gonna see you again.”

“I wanted to call,” Svetlana says, stepping closer.  “I wanted you there when I had baby.  But I don’t have your number.”

Mandy bangs her wrist against the counter in her scramble to get out her pad and pen.  She doesn’t even care, just scrawls her cell number down as fast as humanly possible and rips off the sheet of paper, thrusts it towards Svetlana.

“I’m - I’m sorry you had to go through that alone,” she says.  She wonders if Svetlana even went to hospital; probably not, since she doesn’t have insurance or any money.  She imagines Svetlana alone in her apartment crying in pain, or maybe in the dark back room of the tug shop with one of the other girls holding her hand and telling her to keep quiet.  Either option is sad, and Mandy wants nothing more than to kiss Svetlana’s pain away, forever.  “Have you named him yet?”

Svetlana smiles, and her smile isn’t tinged with sad like usual.  She holds the piece of paper with Mandy’s cell number on it crumpled up in her fist, pressed up against the baby’s back as she rocks him gently, and she has dark circles under her eyes and her hair is messy and she looks so beautiful Mandy could cry.

“Yvgeny,” she says.  Mandy resists the urge to say _gesundheit._ “Was my father’s name.  It is a strong name.”

“Yvgeny,” Mandy repeats, trying the name out on her tongue.  “I like it.  I mean, he’ll get the living shit kicked out of him at school, but I like it.  Maybe we could call him Yev for short?”

Svetlana breaks into the most dazzling grin Mandy’s _ever_ seen, and it takes her breath away.

“Sure,” Svetlana says, wrapping her arms a little tighter around the baby and taking a step towards Mandy.  “We could.”

**Author's Note:**

> for the fic-a-day-in-may challenge.
> 
> um. this was supposed to be like, a simple 1000 word fic as an experiment to see whether i shipped svendy that much.
> 
> 5000+ words later i'm dead and these two beautiful sad girls are the reason for it.
> 
> see more of my svendy related breakdown on tumblr: [mickeymilk](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com).


End file.
